Why is the Hazelton, Idaho area so murdery, by episodes?

The Hazelton area sits on the Snake River plain in southern Idaho, about 25 minutes outside Twin Falls, in Jerome County. James and Jimmie set out the local history: a stage stop at Rock Creek in 1864, farming in the Snake River canyon by 1890 with no irrigation and no roads to move the produce, then the canal system that finally got the land working. Wilson Butte Cave nearby produced arrowheads among the oldest dated artefacts in North America, which is one way of saying people have been passing through for a very long time. The town itself is small: 951 people, as told in 2023.

The Hazelton area's three murders come in two episodes and on three separate dates, so nothing here is one bad night. A single death in Hazelton in October 1998, then a case in Jerome in July 1984 and another in February 2016. Jerome, 21 miles off, is the second town in the hotspot, and the two are tied by the same irrigated farmland and the same pull towards Twin Falls. Rank 104 overall and third in Idaho: modest, but the decades are well covered.